Epicurean — Restaurant in Sydney

Does lunch at the Epicurean give the best buffet bang for my buck? I arrive five minutes early to squeeze every dollar out of my 2.5 hrs booking, but there’s a line of twenty people ahead of me. Luckily, I don’t need to worry, as one of the seven staff swiftly seats us.

First stop: the seafood bar. The fresh oysters are creamy morsel-sized slurps. You’re rewarded for your cracking effort by the fleshy, crustacean sweetness of the King Crab.

The freshness of the sashimi at the Japanese counter is similar to that of Sushi Hub. Amateur knife skills mean several slices are butterfly-cut into one. In an attempt to portion control, the salmon belly is cut into little worms.

Midway through eating, our server interrupts: ‘How many are you all together? Are you all here? How old is she?’ I respond, and she says, ‘I charge for three adults, half price for a child and no charge for the baby. OK?’ After my reply, she leaves abruptly.

Later, I return to the table to find my glass just a drop from overflowing. Though lacking warmth, the service wasn’t completely lacking as our plates were cleared promptly. The chefs, too, are focused and avoid eye contact, though I catch a glimpse of one curling her mouth upwards when I discuss my favoured dessert.

Moving on to the next section, the Thai dishes all have a spicy umami burst, especially the punchy vongole clams, stir-fried with fresh basil and chilli jam. The non-spicy Tom Yum soup is on the sour side, but the rice noodles are firm yet satiny. My child gobbles it up. Also child-friendly is the pineapple fried rice with pork floss, though the thumb-sized raisins go uneaten.

Textured gnocchi, coated with a creamy, cheesy, tomato and vodka sauce is the hero of the Italian station (with no alcohol noted). The food at the Chinese section is ordinary, but I do consume the entire gooey, sweet yet salty egg bun.

The Chocolate Avocado Mousse Tart is intense, dark chocolate smoothness. I’d also endorse the Vanilla Panna Cotta with Raspberry Compote and Tiramisu Tart. And…that’s it - only ten notable plates from the whole buffet.

Many dishes fall short. The beef rump, with its vibrant pink centre, needs several attempts to cut and the red wine jus adds little to the roast meat. The holeless, nearly black, crisp Yorkshire pudding is oil-sogged inside.

The shoulder of lamb meat does fall apart, but it comes with a dull mint and pea verjus gravy. The Indian lamb curry meat is fibrous, with only a nudge of heat. Despite its appealing torched cheese top, the miniscule two lobster pieces in the roll are buried by a dense sauce and crunchy celery.

Apart from the sweets mentioned, all the desserts look pretty, but many are sugar-heavy, like the macarons, and leave you in need of a cuppa to flush them down. Others are absent in flavour, like the two pastries I can’t even recall.

When I leave, my belly is bulging and I skip dinner - extraordinary for me. If you’re looking for quantity and variety, this might be for you. But to find only ten dishes worth mentioning from a buffet of this price and size means I won’t be back. I expected so much more bang - instead of the twang I got - for my $145 bucks.

Visited...

Overall great but some minor service issues. The vegetarian options were yum.

Pros: They had a good enough amount of vegetarian food options like Indian; daal, eggplant and potato curry (best I’ve had), naan, papadums, mini sweet potato burgers/sliders, (dry) pizza and crumbed eggplant (so yum!!).

Cons: After every plate of food you have staff 50% of the time take away the plate and leave you with no knives or forks. It was so annoying. So my friends and I kept having to get up and go looking for them, eventually finding them hidden under a napkin in a waiters trolly. They had no vegetarian noodle options, only noodles with meet or egg through it. The chair I sat on was so filthy. Bizare management thinks it’s ok to use this still - it’s clearly been cleaned over a million times without that working. The food area is kind of far away from our table which was right at the end near a hallway to a bathroom. We spent around $1,400 for a group — on the website it says there is a semi private dining room with minimum spend of $1,500 so if we went again we’d try that. If you buy a bottle of wine they keep taking the bottle of wine away instead of leaving it at the table, we had to ask for them to leave it and it was meant with some confusion from the waiter. The pizza only has tong things to break it up so it was basically impossible to tear the pizza apart from the other slices with the provided tongs. Staff never really check in to see if you want anything. They occasionally filled up water but I had to get up and go get water for the table 3 times here. my friend said they waited ages for new crepes and none were coming and staff not making any so they only came to make some when a customer went behind the counter themselves to make it themselves.

Very ironic given the above that if I think you have over 10 people they charge a 10% service fee. The should be removed or the service be improved to be far better. It kind of felt like there wasn’t enough staff for the amount of people.

Overall I would go here again but maybe once a year or on weekdays so it is more cost effective.

It’s located inside — to the right there are lifts — then I think level 5 — there is a sign next to lift. Then left...

We had the lunch buffet today at epicurean. The venue is very modern, spacious, new and clean and has great views of the city and its surroundings.

There was a variety of seafood including swimmer crabs, little neck clams, mussels, prawns and oysters. The seafood in my opinion was quite average. The mussels and clams did not have much flavour while the crabs were not excellent and not sweet.

The sushi bar included a variety of sashimi cuts like tuna, kingfish and salmon and also had nigiri and rolls as well as other assortments. The fish here was cut well and had a good amount of fat.

There were bread, cheese and cold meats available. The cheese was tasty but the pastrami was tasteless and the prosciutto was too salty.

There was a western option for hot food. The fried chicken sliders were good and the chicken was tender. The snapper and the lamb ragout was tender and well made. The honey cumin carrots were excellent and had a nice sweetness to them. The strip loin however was quite mediocre. One half of the piece I had was very tough and dry while the other half was tender, but not that juicy.

The Asian section included a variety of cuisines. The wok fried green beans were good and the salt and pepper squid was crispy albeit a bit on the salty side. The yum cha had a mix of options. The pork and the Sui Mai was fine but the har how was tasteless and very mushy. The Peking duck and the char Sui was quite nice and the pancakes made were great. But my favourite dish were the pork ribs which were tender, saucy, sticky, savoury and sour.

The fruit area had a good variety of fruit that were juicy and fresh.

The dessert was also good. The ice cream was smooth and sweet. The panna cotta was soft and also smooth. The crepe was not too sweet. The chocolate fountain was only for display purposes.

The servers were nice but they were not that attentive as we had to ask them multiple times for new forks and refills of water.

The price was pricey at $88 per person.

Overall, the buffet had a varying mix of the quality of food. The hot food sections, Japanese section and the desserts were generally good where as the seafood bar and cold meats...